Tradition is Our Response to Scandal

The following guest post was written by Chris Lauer, co-chair of the Charlotte Latin Mass Community. Chris was the procurator for the group Coetus Fidelium that worked diligently for the return of a weekly traditional Latin Mass to Charlotte, North Carolina in 2013. He is married and the father of six.

Please permit me to make a suggestion: If you really want to register your disapproval of the scandals of perversion and cover-up in the Church; if you really want to stick your finger in the eye of these scoundrels; there is no better way than to attend the Traditional Latin Mass. Just simply vote with your feet. Stand up and walk away from the Novus Ordo and instead immerse yourself and your family into the extraordinary richness and ancient beauty of the perfectly valid and licit Traditional Latin Mass and its corresponding sacramental and devotional life.

This is our opportunity to join the growing millions of Catholics around the world who are praying precisely the same Mass, devotions, prayers, and celebrating the same liturgical calendar as our ancestors have for millennia. It is only at the Latin Mass that we can actively participate in that mystical experience of timelessly joining our prayers with our beloved grandparents, great-grandparents, and so on, as they once laid their sufferings at the foot of the high altar during the offertory; or as the polyphony of sacred music was sung from the choir loft.

Thanks to Pope Benedict XVI’s publication of the Apostolic Letter, Summorum Pontificum, which restored the Traditional Latin Mass, the scandal ridden Novus Ordo can simply be left to reap what it has sown–the seeds of its own destruction.

We can follow the guidance provided in the Gospel of Matthew and, “give not that which is holy to dogs; neither cast ye your pearls before swine.” (Matthew 7:6). The house of McCarrick, Wuerl, Mahony, Dolan, Cupich, O’Malley, & Ferrell is rot. As you leave, “go forth out of that house, and shake off the dust of your feet.” (Matthew 10:14). It is time to renounce them and all their works.

You may be asking how we can draw a connection between liturgical abuse and sexual abuse? I contend that the two are root and branch of the same tree; a tree that needs to be cut down and cast into the fire.

The ancient Church maxim of Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi translates roughly that the way in which one prays will determine the depth of their faith. Or stated another way; one cannot pray, or attend Mass, in a more casual way, and yet expect to end up with anything but a casual (lukewarm) faith. It is no surprise that communion in the hand has resulted in a full two-thirds of regular Mass attending Catholics who now no longer believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. So too it follows with every other liturgical novelty in the Novus Ordo that has achieved no better result.

I believe it was the liberal Swiss theologian Hans Kung who opined several years ago that he didn’t particularly concern himself with the Latin Mass itself. What did worry him, however, was that the Latin Mass was the locomotive that pulled along with it all those pesky dogmas and doctrines that we as a Church don’t like to talk about anymore.

On this point I agree with Hans Kung; the Latin Mass is indeed the locomotive and these train cars he despises so much are the Catholic faith itself, passed down unblemished from the apostles. Without these train cars there is no Catholic faith, and that locomotive is the best path forward to rid the Church of these wolves and serpents who commit and cover up unspeakable horrors.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (para. 1124) states:

The Church’s faith precedes the faith of the believer who is invited to adhere to it. When the Church celebrates the sacraments, she confesses the faith received from the apostles – whence the ancient saying: lex orandi, lex credendi, or legem credendi lex statuat supplicandi (the law of praying establishes the law of believing) according to Prosper of Aquitaine. The law of prayer is the law of faith: the Church believes as she prays. Liturgy is a constitutive element of the holy and living Tradition.

That statement, “the Church believes as she prays,” is an absolutely damming statement of the new Mass.

The Novus Ordo was an innovation, not in continuity with that which preceded it, but from whole cloth by a closed-door committee, designed as a reduction of all that had developed organically over the 15 centuries that preceded. Then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger referred to the Novus Ordo as, “a fabrication, a banal on-the-spot product”. It is no wonder that moral depravity has flooded the Church since the introduction of the new Mass in 1970.

One might retort that Latin Mass communities are not immune from scandal or sin, which is surely true. But if this garbage were to happen in traditionalist communities it is unlikely any bishops would remain silent or cover-up the scandal.

We all have known of the crisis in the Catholic Church for some time now. What I suppose is new is the exposure that the episcopacy of the Church, those Bishops and Cardinals (let’s not forget their staff as well) who are charged with guiding the Church, have either completely lost their belief in God or quite possibly never had it to begin with. The way in which they systematically silence, cover up, and punish those who dare complain is the tell. These so-called men deserve millstones in place of their pectoral crosses.

What exposes the atheistic zeal of these bishops is their lack of any true contrition or fear of their own eternal judgement. These are old men, whose time left on earth is nearing its end. I weep for them and for all the lost souls laid to waste in their path of destruction.

This destruction hit home recently when I took my family to the 1900s-era parish church where my great-great-grandfather raised his family. We arrived to find a once beautiful Irish-Catholic neighborhood, lined with broken down cars, dilapidated houses, and the amazing Gothic-style church boarded up.

My daughters wept in disbelief. They asked how this could happen to such a beautiful church. I explained to them that this parish was thriving right up until the Novus Ordo Mass was forced upon them. This is what happens when the Church abandons or waters down her teachings.

The first to go were the external elements such as the Latin Mass, sacred music, the vestments, the habited nuns, and the devotional life. Next come the vices and sin that creep in and break down family life. Contraception and abortion are ignored or accepted which drains the parish of vocations. Divorce results in poverty and latch-key children which in turn drives up crime in a once peaceful neighborhood.

Those with means move away. Those who remain either stop going to Mass or are too poor to contribute much to the basket. In the first 70 years from the parish’s founding to the promulgation of the Novus Ordo Missal, this one parish had turned out 70 vocations. In the 45 years since (until its closing in 2016), vocations were almost nonexistent.

Despite all of this I maintain hope. Let God be praised that we have been chosen to be alive at this time in Church history. Let the restoration begin with us!

Peter Aiello, have you read the text of the ordinary of the Latin Mass versus the ordinary of the novus ordo? you will find far more scripture in the Latin Mass ordinary. Besides the Mass is in the Bible – look in the Book of Revelation. The Latin Mass is closer to the Bible than even a reverent newmass.

The ONE thing that could have the greatest direct impact in turning things around to go back and find that place in which we lost our way and set back on the path that leads to salvation is this: To restore the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass!

The novus ordo bishops – even the decent “conservative” ones – all talk about programs, policies, procedures, investigations, “healing”. Whatever! It is the Mass that they should all know and offer regularly, but don’t because “Vatican II” that would be the most effective, prudent, thing they could do RIGHT NOW to begin to make things right!

Advice to new-comers at Traditional Latin Mass: For the first time or two, just be there and don’t get all nervous about not understanding. Just let the moment take you along keeping in mind that this way your fore bearers worshiped for centuries. You’ll recognize somethings and be intrigued by others. Then get a hand missal and start to sort things out. I always buy hand missals at garage sales to give to first-timers. Look for them yourself, they’re getting harder and harder to find

Chris Lauer, Brian Williams, you are correct in your assertions. However, may I humbly suggest Priest where is thy Mass? at Angelus Press. These men lived as Catholic priests througout the 2nd Vatican Council and years after. From their testimony in the book, and the recollections of other priests and laity I have either read or else to whom I have personally spoken, there were memos coming from the local chancery and antics of fellow priests immediately before and after the promulgation of the “new mass”…the “mass” and “council” were like “dog whistles” to those with itching ears and attachment to sins to which the Latin Mass and the Baltimore Catechism were irritating, like antiseptics on a wound. These unfaithful shepherds stopped talking about Hell and Purgatory even before the newmass was put out, and the silence became deafening once the church “adopted” the newmass and gave them the “all clear” to become bolder. Remember that opposition to Humanae Vitae and the signing of the Land O Lakes statement (which McCarrick signed by the way) had already happened when the newmass was announced in….was it not Advent 1969? The newmass just emboldened them. BTW I attended the reverent Novus Ordo in Charlotte. …all it did was make plain to me that THERE WAS NO REASON to change the Mass….unless one was uneasy with saying the Confiteor (newmass makes it optional, and even so, the priest NO LONGER BOWS DOWN TO GOD and confesses to Him, the saints and vobis fratres – all of us – thatvhebis a sinner in need of mercy and prayers – before we do likewise, if only through the server) No longer do we cry out to each Person of the Triune God in triplicate for mercy in the Kyrie. No longer does the priest pray to have a guard before his lips, that he does not make excuses in sins as he incenses the altar. No longer does the priest say the Roman Canon and invoke all the saints (merely an option, and an incomplete one at that). No longer does our priest genuflect as often as he once did. No longer does he cry out to the Triune God that he is not worthy separately from the people. No longer do we faithful cry out three times that we are likewise not worthy. No longer are we, now nourished with Christ’s Body and Blood, reminded by the reading of John’s Gospel of our mission (not “Mass is ended” – we are sent like John the Baptist) to announce the coming of Christ. No longer do we pray for Mary’s aid, St Michael’s protection and the conversion of Russia. YOU HAVE TO WONDER WHY ALL THESE THINGS WERE ELIMINATED. After witnessing the Latin Mass, I wondered why it was oppoosed. Visiting the “reverent” Novus Ordo earlier this year sharpened my wondering into the points above. The breaking of the McCarrick scandal made it all very plain why all these prelates vehemently oppose Latib Mass and preach heresies and oppose true Church teaching – BECAUSE THE NEW MASS AND WATERED DOWN CATECHISMS AND HERESIES ALL MAKE EXCUSES FOR THEIR SINS. Kyrie eleison Kyrie eleison Kyrie eleison Christe eleison Christe eleison Christe eleison Kyrie eleison Kyrie eleison Kyrie eleison!!!!!!

I walked away from the Novus Ordo Mass back in 2010 ….
Never to return to the new mass , new theology and all the new novelty of the new religion that was created with Vatican II .
TRADITION yes …to God be the glory !

Dear Brian, THank you for this site. I found it in a roundabout way through searching for Father Timothy Reid. I am wondering if you yourself go to daily Mass, and if you do, do you go to the TLM each day, or do you go to The Novus Ordo during the weekday Masses?
Thank you.
Pax et Bonum.
Dorothy

“They asked how this could happen to such a beautiful church. I explained to them that this parish was thriving right up until the Novus Ordo Mass was forced upon them. This is what happens when the Church abandons or waters down her teachings.”

No, this is what happens when the parishioners move out of the neighborhood for the suburbs. One set of books or the other had little or nothing to do with it. These old and venerable parish churches were the epicenters of their community, until that community left them behind. If the community wants to preserve them, the community has to move back. In many cases, this cannot be undertaken lightly, but it is a solution based on what actually happened to begin with.

Mr. Alexander, I would have to respectfully disagree with you. This neighborhood was in the suburbs, and the neighborhood is still there… the dilapidated houses are still occupied. I want to add that the people who built this neighborhood where every bit as poor back then … although they were probably happier since their families were intact and crime was lower … prior to the Church abandoning and watering down her teachings.

Then how do you explain the suburban churches likewise emptying out and facing financial difficulties due to fewer people putting fewer dollars in collection baskets, no young families with children, just grey heads and lots of funerals, very few weddings and baptisms, hmmmmmmm?